White Demon in the Woods
by viper's fang
Summary: Kagome walks home by herself in the dead of the night, exhausted by Koga's possessiveness. She comes across a strange, intelligent dog in the park. Story isn't as extreme as the title. Has a cliched setup, but hopefully not a terribly so idea. Hope to turn this into a multi-chapter story, but it stands alone just fine.


**Started rewatching Inuyasha recently, which has fueled a lot of ideas for fanfics. However, lack of motivation and time will most likely quash those ideas. As it is, I kind of have a plot figured out to turn this into a full story, but I just wanted to get this first 'chapter' out as oneshot because it's highly unlikely I'll write the rest. This is not the best written piece that I've ever done, but it's not the worst, I guess. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the idea.**

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Kagome shuddered and pulled her thin shrug closer to her. It was just entering October, and the air was already freezing. Well, it didn't help that it was, like, two in the morning, but never mind that. All Kagome wanted to do was get home. She couldn't believe Koga! That damn jerk. She always knew that he was possessive, but hitting Hojo just because he was talking to her? No way. That was the final straw. Hojo had just spotted them coming out of the movie theatre together and had wanted to talk for old time's sake. And out of nowhere, Koga just out and hit him. No warning and absolutely no reason. That was not something Kagome needed in her life.

She stumbled a little on the perfectly even sidewalk and muttered under her breath. After leaving Koga behind at the movie theatre, Kagome had decided to go get a drink. 'A' turned into some, some turned into a lot, and before she knew it, the time had hit 1:30am. And by that time, she was feeling kind of hungry, so she stopped by a WacDonalds. She only got about halfway through her Big Wac before the bile started coming up, so she wrapped up the rest of the sandwich and found herself here, standing outside the big wooded park in the middle of the city.

Now, she somehow remembered through her hazy mind that her apartment was on the other side of the park. She also knew that it would take a lot longer to go around the park than to go through it. There was just something bothering her. Something was warning her that going into the wooded park was not her best idea right now. But she decided to ignore that little warning voice. It was cold and Kagome really just wanted to sleep away her problems right now.

So she pressed forward, taking her first step onto the cobblestone path that would lead her home. There were trees directly to both sides, which made Kagome start to feel a little trapped. She shuddered again, and this time not from the cold. The lights were spaced pretty far apart too. She felt like she had been walking forever before she even caught the orangy glow of streetlamp.

But as she drew into the light, the first thing that she noticed was that there was a large white dog laying underneath one of the park benches. Suddenly feeling a little generous (she always had liked dogs, after all), Kagome stopped a few feet away and called out to it. The dog tiredly lifted its head and opened one dark amber eye. Huh. That was a strange color.

Its nose twitched in her direction, no doubt catching the scent of the Big Wac in her hand. But all of a sudden, it visibly flinched away and growled, hackles raising on its back. "Come on, I'm not gonna hurt you," Kagome insisted, holding her hand out towards the dog. It bared its teeth and snapped in her direction, but didn't move from its spot. Was it hurt? Well, Kagome felt her patience waning. She hadn't exactly had the best night either. "Fine," she snapped, unwrapping the Big Wac and throwing the sandwich to the ground. "You can get it when I'm gone. Hope you don't die, mangy mutt."

With that, Kagome stomped away. It wasn't long before she left the warm glow of the lamp and it would be a lie if she said that she didn't miss it. The woods really were kind of creepy at night with the leaves rustling all around her. At times, she couldn't tell if it was because of a breeze or if it was because of some creature among the branches. The sooner she could get home, the better.

Kagome breathed a sigh of relief as the glow of another lamp came into view. But before she could reach it, here was a violent rustling directly to her right side. She turned in time to see a man break through the underbrush and whip out a blade. "Hand over the purse, lady," the man growled, looking a little wild with his scruffy clothes and unshaven face.

Just how bad was her luck?! Kagome wanted to scream out of pure frustration, but she settled on a shriek of fear. Close enough. She clutched her purse tighter on instinct and tried to back away but the man darted forward and grabbed her arm. "I said hand me the purse!" he yelled testily, giving her a rough shake. Kagome would've denied later that she let out a whimper when he did that.

Hands shaking, she held the purse out in front of her. Just as the thief was about to snatch it out of her hands, she tossed it into the trees. But instead of letting her go, the thief tightened his grip on her arm. Kagome knew she was going to have a bruise later. Weren't thieves supposed to be more interested in getting the possessions than harming the victim? Ugh, only she could have luck this bad.

"What the hell was that just now?" the man muttered dangerously. "Did you think you were going to get away that easily?"

Now, this incident was sobering Kagome up considerably. However, she had had quite a few drinks and some of the alcohol was clearly still affecting her because she murmured "Kind of?" She wanted to hit herself as soon as the words slipped past her lips. She desperately hoped that the thief had somehow missed her comment.

He hadn't.

"You think you're awfully funny, don't you?" the man growled out, pointing the knife at her dangerously.

Kagome suddenly remembered a move from her self-defense class and drove her trapped hand downwards before twisting it back upwards. The thief's grip broke and Kagome ran into the woods, hoping to lose him in the darkness. There was only one problem: Kagome couldn't see in the dark either.

Her foot caught on a tree root and she could hear her attacker's footsteps crashing down close behind her. Too close. She tried to climb to her feet but a sharp pain ripped through her ankle, forcing her back to the ground. To make matters worse, her attacker appeared out of the trees behind her.

"There you are," the man snarled. "You didn't get very far."

"You try running in high heels," Kagome muttered under her breath again. Why, oh why couldn't she seem to keep her mouth shut today?

Just then a different, non-human snarl rose up out of the trees. To Kagome's surprise, the large white dog from earlier melted out of the trees in front of her, growling viciously. But not at her. It bared its teeth and snapped at the man behind her. It was an imposing sight, bigger than Kagome first estimated. It had to be close to a hundred pounds with long silvery fur that was currently raised up along its back. Its triangular ears were pressed along its skull and its body almost hugging the ground. To Kagome's panic-mode mind, it kind of looked like a fierce demon.

The man glanced at her, then at the dog. The dog leaped forward and the thief fell backwards in his scramble to get away. Its jaws just missed his ankles as he climbed back to his feet and ran away screaming.

The dog immediately stopped snarling and turned to Kagome, sniffing her attentively and nosing her hand. It was almost as if it was apologizing for the way it acted earlier. Kagome petted the dog's head reassuringly. "I'm okay," she assured it. "Ankle's just a bit sore."

She undid the straps to her high heels and levered herself to her feet, wincing as she did. The dog nosed her again, no doubt sensing her discomfort. She absently patted him on the head again. "I'm fine, boy, really."

Slowly, painfully so, Kagome made her way back to the park's pathway. The dog followed her every step of the way, ears perked up and stiff. She chuckled a bit. It was cute that it was being so protective of her. Probably because of the Big Wac she gave it earlier. Once she got back to the walkway, she tiredly dug around in the trees opposite to try and find her purse. It was really hard considering that the woods were dark and the purse was black and kind of small.

Kagome was going to give up when the dog next to her suddenly dove into the trees. When it came out, it was holding her purse in its jaws. He dropped the item at her feet and looked up at her expectantly. Grimacing, she reached down and picked it up. Just as she thought. Full of slobber. She smacked the leather, hoping the drool wouldn't ruin it.

The dog was staring at her expectantly, as if it were waiting for praise. Sighing, Kagome said, "Good boy." The dog made a small snuffling noise that strangely sounded pleased. It made Kagome give a snort of her own. "You certainly have a humble personality."

She started to walk back in the direction of her apartment, surprised as the dog continued to follow her. "I don't have anymore food, you know," she informed it. He just leveled a gaze at her as if to ask 'So?' and just continued to plod along next to her. Kagome shrugged. She didn't have the energy or the will to argue. Plus, she had to admit, the dog's company was comforting. Nobody was going to bother her with a huge 100 pound dog by her side.

So instead of chasing it away, she started to tell the dog about what happened to her that day. It made her feel better to vent about it and the dog was a great listener, grumbling and muttering quietly at all the right moments. It was as if he knew exactly what she was saying and could sympathize. When Kagome mentioned the moment that Koga punched Hojo, the dog let out a quiet growl, as if showing its distaste.

"Right?" Kagome agreed happily. "He's such a jerk."

That's when Kagome noticed that the trees were thinning out and that she had arrived on the other side of the park. "Finally. I can't wait to get home!" she groaned. However, the dog came to a complete stop at the edge of the park entrance, as if there was some invisible barrier.

Kagome looked back at him, confused. "What's the matter?"

His ears drooped a bit and he whined slightly, looking back at the park, then back at her. He muttered in his own unintelligible language. Kagome couldn't be sure of what he was trying to tell her, but the pleading look in his eyes was unmistakable.

"You can come with me," she gently told him, bending down and extending her hand towards him. "After all, who knows when I might need someone to protect me again."

The dog visibly brightened, snorting in an almost amused manner as it trotted up to her again.

"What, you think that's funny?" Kagome snapped teasingly, ruffling the fur on top of the dog's head. "Just you wait. I'll get you back, mutt. Oh yeah, I probably should give you a name, shouldn't I? I think I'll call you...Inuyasha."

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 **A couple of end notes. I imagined Inuyasha as an Akita, since they have a lot of traits that I could use as dog-Inuyasha's personality. Plus, they're originally Japanese and can get pretty large. I wanted a dog with longer fur like a Samoyed, but Samoyeds don't get as large as I wanted Inuyasha to be. Besides, they apparently do funny little snorts and other noises as a running commentary in the presence of their people. I thought it was both amusing and fit well with dog-Inuyasha. The other thing I wanted to mention was the meaning of Inuyasha's name. Most people who know even the slightest bit about Japanese probably have figured this out, but I wanted to explain it in case people wanted to claim that her naming the dog Inuyasha was not extremely realistic. To that, I say ha! And...quietly agree. However, it does make some sense. 'Inuyasha' means 'dog demon' or 'dog forest spirit.' She found him in the park, he saved her in the woods...yeah, that was my attempt at explanation.**


End file.
